The Atlantic Slave Trade (706-712)

• Atlantic Slave trade was the largest slave trade network in modern times
• Atlantic Slave trade ended in the early 19th century

• Slavery was common in Africa after the Bantu migration spread agriculture everywhere in Africa.
• Most slaves at this time were war captives, criminals, and individuals expelled from there clans
• African slaves were usually worked as cultivators in society but some were administrators, soldiers, and even highly placed advisors
• African law did not recognize private property so wealth was based upon control over the human labor that mad the land productive
• Slaves were sometime bought to enlarge families and enhance power
• Slaves could receive honorable position in a new family or clan and there freedom

A craft carrying slaves

• Muslim merchants from North Africa, Persia, and Arabia went after African slaves for purchase and to be distributed in the Mediterranean basin, India, southeast and southwest Asia, and China.
• Merchants raided villages when slave distribution was low and stole individuals then forced them into slavery
• State officials would sometimes provide calvary to the merchants and assist them during raids
• Islamic Slave Trade lasted to 12th century
• 10 million Africans were forced into slavery by the Islamic Slave Trade
• Europeans expanded slave trade from the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean basin after 1450

• Slave Trade in Europe was started by the Portuguese in 1441 after Portuguese mariners captured 12 African men in a raid
• by 1460 mariners were delivering 500 slaves a year to Spain and Portugal
• African slaves worked as miners, porters, and domestics servants in Europe
• Sugar Planters relied on slaves for labor in Sao Tome each year because the demand for sugar in Europe increased
• In the 1530s Portuguese imported slaves directly to Brazil which made Brazil one of the wealthiest sugar producing countries
• Spanish conquerers needed slaves to work there land in the Caribbean and the Americas
• Spanish attempted to use indigenous people of those lands for workers but eventually moved to import African slaves
• English colonists move slaves to the North American mainland by early 17th century

• First leg-carried European manufactured goods like firearms, cloth, and metal wares to Africa in exchange for slaves
• Second leg- traded the slaves in the Caribbean and American destinations for money, sugar, or molasses
• Third leg- filled ships with American goods and traveled back to Europe to exchange for more European goods

• Slave trade was an inhumane and brutal business
• forced to undergo "the middle passage" where they put slaves in a filthy over crowded ship and sailed to the Americas
• forced the slaves to sit under the deck of the ship extremely cramped and sometimes in chains on shelves with no room to even sit up

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• death rates could exceed 50% until larger ships that were equipped with more room and more supplies were established which brough the death rate down to 5%

• Before 1600 Slave trade was on a modest scale where about two thousand slaves left Africa every year
• Atlantic Slave trade increased immensely after the 17th century
• Slave distribution rose to about 20,000 slaves a year being sent away from Africa
• the high point of slave trade came in the 18th century, where 55,000 slaves a year were being exported out of Africa
• 12 million Africans were exported out of African from the beginning to the end of the Atlantic slave trade where 4 million died resisting to slavery or on the ships before they reached there destinations
• Africans who raided, captured, and sold slaves to the Europeans at this time mad very large profits

• African societies experienced extreme losses during the time of the Atlantic Slave Trade
• 16 million individuals were taken from African society due to the Atlantic Slave Trade
• several million were also taken by the Islamic slave trade
• slave trade changed the sex ratio in Africa because 2/3 or all slaves exported were men between the age of 14 and 35
• this forced women to take on responsibilities of some men

• wars between native African societies took place because of the absence of trade between African people
• after the late 17th century African people started trading slaves for firearms with the Europeans because violence escalated
• The Dahomey people(which were native Africans) traded slaves for weapons then used there weapons to capture unarmed native tribes to sell to the Europeans so that they could obtain even more weapons